Chances, Changes and Challenges
by megz93
Summary: This is my take on Lily and the Marauders' seventh year at Hogwarts, read as they fight friends, enemies and feelings whilst trying to prepare themselves for the big bad world outside of Hogwarts. Not completely Canon First JILY fanfic Rated M for later chapters and language
1. Chapter 1

**Hi guys, **

**First off, thank you for giving my fanfic a chance! It means a lot to me that you are interested by my summary! :) **

**Secondly, this is a tester chapter; I want to see if anyone likes my style of writing and would like to see how the story pans out (this isn't a beg for reviews, I would really like to share this fanfic with you but if no one likes it then there is no point) **

**Thirdly, I only ask that you be patient with me, I work full-time, have a boyfriend that lives 2 hours away and I would like to have a social life. I aim to update a minimum of once a month (if this changes I will let you know asap!) **

**Lastly, I hope you enjoy and please review, let me know what you think :) **

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"I can't believe it's term time already" Lily Evans said, turning back to her parents. They were standing on platform 9 and three-quarters. Her mother, Sarah Evans was 5ft tall with short red hair. She was tiny compared to her daughter. Her father, Andrew Evans was 6ft 4', with dark hair and bright green eyes, the eyes that Lily had inherited. "Or that it is my last year' she added sadly. This was her seventh and last year at Hogwarts which excited and terrified her at the same time.

"I know" Her mother agreed "But before you know it, Christmas break will be here and you'll be back home" She added pulling her daughter into a hug.

"Tell your friends they are more than welcome to stay with us and maybe invite those boys that you've complained about since first year?" Andrew asked giving Lily a kiss on the forehead. "You didn't seem to complain as much as you complimented them this summer" he added

"I'll ask Aimee, Hestia and Remus, they love staying with us and I'll see how much James and Sirius annoy me until than" Lily replied, rolling her eyes. James Potter had been a thorn in her side since first year. He was the ringleader of the four best pranksters in the school, the Marauders. The group consisted of James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Sirius and James were the type of boys who disrupted classes, chased all the girls and liked being the centre of attention. Remus was the brains of the group and mainly looked in the library for the spells that were required for their pranks and Peter was more of a decoy in the pranks and seemed to admire James and Sirius. It started off as just harmless pranks against her and her ex-best friend Severus Snape and then built up to James asking her out once or twice a day in the third and fourth year. In his fifth year however he seemed to mature a lot over the summer and only seemed to hex Severus. Until he jinxed Severus which caused him to snap at Lily and call her a Mudblood. Since then James had matured a lot and seemed to take a genuine interest in Lily. The train whistled which brought Lily out of her thoughts.

"You better go dear, write to us as soon as you can" Sarah told her daughter as she pulled her into another hug.

"I will" Lily promised, giving both her parents a kiss on the cheek before climbing on the train. She closed the door behind her and pulled the window down to wave goodbye to her parents. She waited until the train had left the platform and she could no longer see her parents before closing the window and walking down the train, looking in compartments to try to find her friends. After a while she guessed they were at the back of the train, but she needed to go to the front of the train for Head Girl duty. She was made Head Girl over the summer and she assumed that Remus Lupin was made Head Boy with her although he never mentioned it in his letters. Remus Lupin was a sweet quiet boy. Lily had no idea why he was friends with James and Sirius but the three boys seemed inseparable. When she arrived at the prefect compartment she saw Remus already there talking to James Potter.

"Potter, the Prefects meeting is about to start so you might want to leave" Lily said holding the door open for him.

"Well actually, I think I'll stay" James replied standing up. Something shiny on his chest caught her attention. He was wearing a Head Boy badge.

"Give Remus back his badge and go Potter" Lily laughed sitting down

"It's not my badge Lils, James got it" Remus told her quietly, "I mean did you seriously think that Dumbledore would give me Head Boy?" he added bitterly. Remus was bitten by a werewolf when he was a young boy. Lily figured it out in their fifth year when they were patrolling together.

"Yes, I did!" Lily exclaimed "You deserve it, you work hard, get excellent grades, tutor younger students and aside from being a marauder, a model student"

"Told you" James muttered "Lily, I didn't ask for this and I wrote to Dumbledore telling him to give the badge to Remus but he wouldn't have it, he said that he thinks it's what I need to do to become the man who I am supposed to be"

"Well Dumbledore obviously has his reasons, so I'll lead today and then we'll work something out" Lily sighed in resignation, Dumbledore may be the smartest man she knows, but this is got to be one of his dumbest choices

"Sounds good to me" James agreed, the door opened revealing the rest of the prefects. Lily drew a deep breath and started the meeting.

The meeting went as well as it could, James tried pitching in where he could. Of course the Slytherins were outraged that a 'mudblood' ranked higher than them but James very quickly put them back in their place, with a few threats of hexes which resulted in Lily hitting him round the head and taking back control. Lily planned out the patrols and opted to take the first patrol with Remus.

"James did quite well in there" Remus commented as they walked through the train.

"Stop that" Lily warned, as some first years were turning the compartment yellow "Yes, he did"

"You know he's not too bad, please just give him a chance" Remus begged "Not date him, just be friends, it'll make this year so much easier" he added

"Okay, I promise I'll try to be friendly with him, he has matured a lot over the past year so I suppose he deserves that at least" Lily conceded, she didn't see why Remus was so set on having her be friends with Potter

"You know, I think if you got to know him a bit better you might actually find that you like him" Remus mused, as they passed through yet another carriage.

"I highly doubt that" Lily snapped; now she knew why. He was just trying to be a friend and set them up, she liked Remus but this was over stepping the line.

"But James really does like you, he wants to get to know you and if you just gave him a chance…" Remus started, but faltered under her glare.

"No, I'm going to say this one more time; it's the same as I've said for the past two years. I do not want to get to know James Potter, I do not want to give him a chance" Lily said slowly "Understood?" she asked

"I'm just trying to help" Remus replied. They patrolled in silence after that.

Finally they reached their friend's usual compartment; thankfully James had already left for his patrol. Hestia Jones was the first to pull Lily into a hug. Hestia was a small girl, around 4ft6', had long, dark, curly hair.

"Lily! It feels like I haven't seen you in forever!" the short girl exclaimed

"You saw me two weeks ago" Lily laughed, pulling away from the hug, She looked around the compartment, Sirius Black had his arm slung around a fellow Gryffindor seventh year and one of Lily's closest friends, Aimee. She was 5ft4', with short black hair and heavy eyeliner. Peter was nowhere to be found, probably with his girlfriend, Sarah Goldstein, who was a sixth year Ravenclaw.

"Hi Aimee, how was your summer?" Lily asked, as she sat down next to the window

"It was great thanks Lils, I spent most of it with Sirius and James" Aimee replied breaking away from Sirius, "I'm sorry I couldn't come to your house for the summer but you know what my parents are like" She added sadly. Her parents, though they weren't pureblood fanatics, didn't agree with Aimee's friendship with Lily as they deemed it 'too dangerous' and it wasn't safe to visit Lily in the muggle world.

"It's okay, I understand, they are just worried about you" Lily reassured her.

"So, Hest, tell me about your new bloke" Aimee probed. This then started Hestia off with her 'truly romantic story'. Lily sighed; she really did understand why Aimee's parents were scared for their daughter and repeatedly told Hestia that they had a point. More and more muggleborns were going missing and turning up dead every day, even people who supported muggleborns were being targeted now. Voldemort was getting stronger and recruiting more and more followers. One of whom she suspected was her ex best friend. Severus Snape had been Lily's first friend in the wizarding world, he told her all about Hogwarts and the wonderful things that happened there and all the magical things she would learn. What he didn't tell her was that she would be judged and looked down on because she was a muggleborn. Their friendship started dying when Severus started hanging around with some older Slytherins and got involved in Dark Magic and ended when he called her a Mudblood.

"So James is Head boy" Hestia commented bringing Lily out of her thoughts.

"Unfortunately" Lily sighed; she promised Remus that she'd give him a chance so she in turn promised herself that she would try to avoid her famous 'Potter-is-an-arrogant-toe-rag' rants.

"No rant?" Aimee exclaimed, pretending to feel Lily's head with her hand "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine" Lily laughed slapping her hand away "I'm going to give him a chance to prove himself this year" she explained

"Wow, Lily Evans giving James Potter a chance, the world must be ending" Sirius cried, scrambling to the window "Look! Pigs are flying"

"Shut up Black" Lily giggled; he settled down and pulled Aimee back into his arms. Lily smiled as she watched her friends, Aimee poked Sirius in the ribs and pulled him down for a kiss, they had dated on and off for the past three years, it was always some drama or another with them. Honestly Lily thought that the drama was what made them happy together, the heated arguments, the contests to see who could make the other more jealous. It's what made the relationship exciting for them. She tended to stay out of the arguments and comfort Aimee when things were bad but knew that she would be back with him by the end of the month. Hestia was talking to Remus about their upcoming NEWTS and how much extra work they would be getting. She knew this year was going to be eventful, little did she how just how eventful it would be.


	2. Chapter 2

**So yeah, decided after a while (okay longer then a while) I'm just gonna keep posting chapters and see how it goes, hopefully people will enjoy it. Kinda would like a little feedback on the changes of point of views on the same moments, does it work? or is it too much repetition? **

**anyways enjoy and review please :)**

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James Potter was still in shock that he was made Head Boy, Dumbledore must have finally cracked. There was no way that he could actually be made Head Boy; between himself and his best friend Sirius Black, they had broken the record for most detentions in their fourth year. He was an illegal animagus so he could run around with a werewolf every full moon (which he knew Dumbledore knew about) and to top it off he is known as a 'bully' (he didn't agree with that label) for jinxing younger students, anyone who got in his way, anyone who annoyed him, pretty much anyone who wasn't his three best friends, their other halves or Lily Evans. He was patrolling with a 7th year Ravenclaw Emma Brown, she was pretty but quiet, James never really noticed her before. He couldn't help but compare her to Lily, she had blonde hair that was long and slightly curled at the ends, similar to Lily's, her eyes were a striking blue that held no match to Lily's emerald green ones. She was slim and well developed in the chest area, much more than Lily.

"James?" Emma asked, he blushed as he realised he had been staring at her body for a while.

"Sorry, where have we got left to patrol?" James asked, looking away. He couldn't believe he was caught staring at her like that.

"Just the devil's minion carriage" Emma replied, laughing

"I usually call it the snake's carriage" James laughed "But I like your name better" He added as he opened the door to the next carriage. It was quiet in the carriage like hardly anyone was there. Emma pulled out her wand and opened the first carriage, no one was in there, as they walked along the carriage they only saw a few Slytherins, most of which were third years or below. Emma opened the door to another compartment just in time to see a group of them disappear.

"That was weird" she whispered, closing the door.

"Yeah, I'm gonna get back up" James agreed fumbling around in his pocket. He pulled out his mirror "Sirius" He called

"Prongs, come back man, the smarty pants are boring me and Evans…" Sirius started

"Sirius get to the Slytherin's carriage now" James cut him off "Something is weird down here, a group of Slytherins just disappeared off the train, grab anyone who is available to help" he added, before putting the mirror away and pulling out his wand.

"What was…" Emma started but she was cut off by an explosion at the end of the carriage. James pushed Emma behind him and raised his wand arm, ready to defend himself.

"Portego" Emma whispered from behind James, "Better to be defensive then offensive" she added. Before James could reply the door to the last carriage was blown open and Death Eaters spilled through.

"Shit" James muttered, praying Sirius was smart enough to alert a teacher. The Death Eaters froze for what seemed to be a long time before jumping into action. Curses flew from all directions as James shot any spell that popped into his mind. Emma seemed to be better at protecting herself then actually retaliating and was dodging curses and putting up shields.

"Avada Kevadra" A Death Eater yelled, once again everything slowed down for James, he saw the jet of green light heading for Emma, before he even knew what he was doing he threw himself at her, knocking her to the ground.

"PRONGS!" was the last thing he heard before everything went black.

"PRONGS!" Sirius yelled after seeing his brother jump in front of a jet of green light. Rage took over him as James didn't get back up. He shot curse after curse some dark, some illegal and some harmless but he didn't care. He needed to get to his best friend. He could see Aimee holding her own beside him, she looked at him and nodded. She would cover his back so he could get to James.

"PRONGS!" Sirius yelled, Aimee heard the distress in his voice. He can't be dead, he just can't. Sirius looked at her and she nodded, no words needed. He needed to get to his brother and she would have his back.

"REDUCTO" She yelled, aiming it at the group of Death Eaters, it knocked a few of them back but some were quick enough to put up shields. Sirius continued to fight his way forward. She moved with his sending spell after spell hoping and praying to whatever god there was that James was alive.

"PRONGS!" Lily heard Sirius shout, James was lying on the ground not moving. She couldn't tell if the killing curse hit him or not, she unfroze and started sending jinxes and hexes at the Death Eaters, she just prayed Dumbledore got her message. "Portego" She yelled seeing Aimee and Sirius fighting their way to James. The shield helped them move closer to James.

"PRONGS!" Remus heard Sirius shout, he had seen the jet of green light shoot by but didn't see where it landed, he was busy trying to keep the death eaters back. They were spilling through the door shooting spells over each other. He lost everyone in the fight and smoke that was filling the compartment.

The first thing James noticed was the yelling and bright lights that were filling the compartment, under him he could feel Emma underneath him, she wasn't moving. His heart stopped, had he been too late? He felt around for his wand making sure he still covered her body with his, just in case.

"Prongs! Are you hurt?" He heard Sirius shout, he looked over to see him battling two death eaters trying to get to him.

"I'm okay but Emma isn't moving" He yelled back, he found his wand "Stupefy!" He croaked, hitting a death eater who ran past. He fell to the floor with a thud, James propped himself up a little to get a better look at Emma. Her striking blue eyes were open and her chest not moving.

"No" he whispered, he was too slow. He felt someone grab his shoulder and distantly heard voices but he couldn't focus on them, he couldn't take his eyes off Emma.

"I'm okay but Emma isn't moving" Lily's heart soared. James was alive but it sunk just as quick. Emma was a sweet girl that Lily had patrolled with plenty of times on full moons when Remus was in the shrieking shack. Tears sprung to her eyes.

"Stupefy!" she yelled, rage taking over. She shot hex after hex, the first ones that popped into her mind.

"STOP!" Lily felt a wave of relief. Dumbledore was here, they were safe. Most of them anyway.


End file.
